


The Hitch With(out) Time

by Prinzenhasserin



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Almost Canonical Alternate History, As A Backstory, Crossing Timelines, F/M, Temporary Character Death, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 20:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/pseuds/Prinzenhasserin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Susan comes home after work, there's a surprise waiting for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hitch With(out) Time

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta-ed. Probably a weird mix of English and Amercian spelling.
> 
> Set somewhen after Thief of Time
> 
> Because Hogfather always was my favourite Death book.

After a long, exhausting day at school, Susan was finally in direct proximity of her armchair - and the bookshelf equipped with at least three delicious novels she hadn't yet the pleasure of reading. In fact, only a door and a hallway separated her from her much needed leisure. She felt utterly drained – after travelling to the beginning of creation and trying to keep the students from talking the God of Evolution into developing cruel mating rituals (which she incidentally kind of failed) –  all she was longing for was a nice, quiet evening by the fire-side.

Wrapping herself in the nice leather-coat her grandfather had gifted her at the last Hogswatch Night, she felt her hair rearranging from the tight knot into something more suitable for home: a fairly loose braid. Tired, she reached into her pocket for the key.

“---...ing!“ That was as far as she would allow herself to swear, though letting her key slip through gutter was very much on the top of things she did not need right now - or at all. “Why do the laws of nature never make exceptions for the little things!?“

She hovered over the gully, wondering what exactly she should do about the keys to her precious retreat far away from other people and laws other than narrative causality. For a second, she wondered if Anoia would also be responsible for these sort of things.

“Laws of Nature?“ a very happy voice came from behind her. She suppressed the urge to flinch. „What are those?“ She turned around slowly, ignoring the feeling of something very sharp on her neck,  and locked her eyes with two very disturbing orbs. One was an almost black hole swirling with the light of the endless universe, the other one of the colour of a glass marble Gawain, her foster-child used to play with – very light, very ethereal and almost iridescent. “Hello,” a bewitchingly red mouth said. “Who are you?”

Blonde cherub-like locks framed a child-like face (small nose, big eyes), and Susan would have wanted at least a warning to know when to plan her vacation. Although - her grandfather seemed absent, and neither a rat, nor a raven, nor a glum old man were anywhere to be seen, so apparently nothing too unnatural was happening. (She shouldn't have thought that. She simply shouldn't have.)

Her key chain was dangling in front of her face.

Right.

“You are Susan Sto Helit,” he told her with his cheerful grin. “Twerp's Peerage. Family motto, _Non Timetis Messor,_ orphaned quite some years ago, working a school-teacher – ah-nd your grandfather is quite well-known.“ He inhaled a bit air, then tipped his head in question, “Do you honestly think he took that motto earnestly?”

Until now she had not felt the need to utter a word, but she wondered if maybe it was time to start. Although he was clearly an assassin, she was quite curious what he wanted from her: What could possibly bring people to murder school teachers? (There was no way he was here for her grandfather, because, well – Death.)

After he appeared in her apartment right after she unlocked the door and decided to examine the shelf above her fireplace, she voiced her first words that evening. “Do I know you?” she wanted to know.

“Well...” as she discovered even a friendly shrug was terrifying in combination with those disturbing eyes. “Actually, you kind of should. My name is Jonathan Teatime.”

She let the name roll over her tongue, “You mean like around four o'clock in the afternoon?”

She wondered how he got the knife on her neck so fast and those glistening eyes right in front of her without getting noticed by the physical laws. Something told her to feel scared right about - now. Somehow, she manage not to.

“I said Teh-ah-tim-eh, and I know you heard it. Lady Susan, my dear,” he said again pleasantly, as the anger in his real eye subsided. The knife followed the line of her jaw back from the ear to her chin.

The knife was freezing, just like her feet were, and she had to repress the urge to shiver.

* * *

“So...” the woman said without further acknowledging the knife at her veins. It made him feel bipolar, well, more than usual, because he was never quite contended when people weren't afraid (preferably of him), but he didn't mind the Lady. “Why should I know you again?”

She sat down in her armchair and stretched her feet towards the warm fire her landlady lit every winter-afternoon. Without any noticable movements, he suddenly stood next the chimney shelf, holding the picture frame usually hanging there.

“It's his all fault,” he said rather sulkily. It wasn't the first time he reminded her of a little boy. In fact, the only time he didn't seem like a boy, was when he corrected his name.

“That's Lobsang!” She was rather puzzled what a monk of time could have to do with an Ankh-Morpork assassin.

“That's the one,” he told her. “You see, some time ago I was... paid to inhume the Hogfather.”

Susan blinked rather unbelieving. Was he just another liar? She did remember everything. She even remembered the _future_ , and those eerie dreams of teeth.

“Yeah, well, anyway. I invaded the tooth-fairy’s territory and almost got away with erasing his existence, but then you came. I guess, I made quite the impression on you, because a little while later there I was, dead with a poker sticking through my chest.”

Flashing images came to her mind (and those awful teeth!) She heard herself say, “Hi, inner child! I'm the _inner babysitter_.” She rolled her eyes. When had she ever been such a drama queen?

“And some time later, it had to be a lot time later, because I can't remember all the inhuminations I supposedly did, I lay wide awake in my bed, not remembering anything about what happened after the poker thing." ( _'The poker thing?'_   She felt a vindictive glee - It only hurts the monsters.) "So I went to the Unseen University, but they were just useless like always, so I tried visiting Mrs. Cake. She said, as a fine young man I should be as kind as to go off and see Mrs Cosmopilite.”

Susan snorted. As if Mrs. Evadne Cake would describe someone like Teatime as a fine man.

“Okay, she didn't exactly say that. It was more like: 'I am Mrs. Cake and if you don't put a way your bloody knife and bugger off to Mrs. Cosmopilite, I will sure get you into trouble, boy!' I went, met a  innocent old man, who told me there's a time and place for everything.  He told me a lot.  Apparently he was fairly happy to see I was alive. First one, to do that, you know. Anyway, I found out that this little friend of yours made my death unhappen. And had me taught by Johanna Smith-Rhodes! Happy now?”

“If I remember correctly," Susan stated after a short pause, “last time I saw you, you were a madman on a murderous rampage to kill the Hogfather. What happened to that?”

She was very calm, because honestly? What did she have to do with all this? Was there a read blinking sign for all supernatural trouble pointing to her doorsteps?

She stood up and went to the kitchen to make herself and her guest a cup of hot chocolate. It wasn't like she had a creepy assassin – whom she once killed – over everyday for Teatime.

“Teatime," she said as she re-entered the room, just to try it out. Bracing herself for the obligatory knife, she still felt a chill as soon as she felt the metal connect to her skin.

She grinned. Oh, this was so much fun! It's not as if she could behave like that in polite company.

“I meant the around four o'clock thing," she smiled at those strange eyes that looked rather surprised. She still felt fairly happy when she handed him the cup and Teatime found him admiring those brown eyes and the frilly hair that didn't like it to much to be braided. And of course the womanly curves well saved under that black dress, deliciously hidden – no way!

“So, Mr. Tea-” she stopped herself, and smiled again. She was teasing him. How come she didn't remember him trying to kill her? Why was she this careless? How come she was sitting inside of her apartment and talking to him in the – well not exactly polite manner, but she still offered him hot chocolate. “ah-tim-eh,” she carried on. Nervously he played with his knife. It danced on the top of his palm, and then it was gone – oh, there it was! He regained his composure, while she continued, “Who is the next to be inhumed? Mister Slant?”

“Oh, no, that is to easy. He was almost killed once, by a very impolite man trying to be an assassin," he said absent-minded. “It's much more complicated. There's a open contract about inhuming Duchess Sto-Helit. It's quite a problem, you know. I don't really want you to be inhumed. And what's worse. I don't even have a rational reason...it's just me being considerably silly and selfish,” he looked fairly disturbed by that thought. Then he smiled and winked - “Just kidding, my dear. Fell for it?”

Susan sat with the cup half to her mouth and stared.

That was the most believable act she ever fell for. And she was teaching kids!

Then it dawned on her. “Hell's Bells! You're serious!” She opened her mouth and tipped her head slightly. “Who is paying the bill?”

He looked at her happily and grinned. “I was just kidding! As if an assassin ever would tell on his contractor, my dear.”

She laughed. Oh, it would be such a shame to have her inhumed. Not with a laugh like that. “Now you barge into my house, right? And you tell me, you are not dead, which you obviously aren't, then you tell me some unknown entity tries to have me killed”

“Inhumed,” he murmured under his breath.

“And I am supposed to believe you? What the heck!”

“I haven't told you to get you to believe me. I told you because I owe you since it was you who killed and resurrected me.”

She stared at the madman sitting in her living room playing with his knife talking about murder, with a straight face and completely obvious to his rather awkward behaviour.

Then she arched one eye-brow and told him quite matter-of-factly: “Well, what do you want to do about it?”

* * *

(This is, of course, when Narrative Causality appoints a hero, his love-interest, and the villain.)


End file.
